sautéed chicken, jalapeño and mushroom salad. (with some sugar, spice and everything nice…)

 We generally have a salad for at least one dinner a week, so we are always looking for ways to switch it up. This one was one of the best we’d made in a long time…delicious.

Salad Ingredients:

1/3 head romaine lettuce, chopped

feta cheese, crumbled on each serving, to taste

1-2 chicken breasts

1 jalapeño pepper, chopped

1 green onion, chopped

2-3 white mushrooms, thinly sliced

½ apple, chopped

¼ cup caramelized pecans:

¼ cup pecans, chopped

1 Tbsp. salted butter

½ cup brown sugar

poppy seed vinaigrette salad dressing (recipe here)

Whenever Kevin cooks it’s off the cuff so…I tried my hardest to get him to nail down what went into the chicken marinade for this salad.

Chicken Marinade Ingredients:

2-3 Tbsp. brown sugar

1-2 garlic cloves, minced

dash of salt

½ cup apple cider vinegar (or enough to cover chicken)

*for later:

1 Tbsp. olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

Directions:

1.Mix up marinade in a Ziploc bag and add chicken. (Mixture should cover chicken when laid flat on it’s side…add apple cider until it does.)

*let marinade at least an hour

2.Caramelize about ¼ cup chopped pecans. (make more or less depending on how much you like this sweet element…)

Put about 1 Tbsp salted butter and ½ cup brown sugar in a pan. Once they’ve begun melting and mixing, add the chopped pecans and stir until the nuts are golden brown. Let cool on parchment paper.

3. Chop apple, green onion, jalapeño (remove seeds), set aside.

4. Slice mushrooms, set aside. (wash or remove the top layer)

5. If you don’t keep a supply of this dressing in the fridge, (like I do) make it now.

6. Chop lettuce, set aside.

7. Thinly cut the chicken breasts and sauté in olive oil with freshly minced garlic until about half cooked then add the chopped jalapeño and sliced mushrooms.  Sauté until chicken is cooked through.

8. Fill bowls with lettuce and top with sautéed chicken, mushrooms and jalapeño, green onion, caramelized pecans, apples, feta cheese and dressing.

Enjoy!